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Traveling Light

Let’s face it, the new airline baggage restrictions and fees are causing more people to carry their bags on to planes. Roller bags, shoulder bags, backpacks and more keep getting stuffed full, making overhead bin space as precious as a first class-upgrade. At the same time, limits to how much you can take on a plane mean more checked baggage and, as we all know, sometime bags gets lost, or delayed, and that can really ruin a business trip or a vacation.

But there is hope for the traveler. Technology and specialization are there to make your life easier and better when you go on the road.

For starters, using a luggage-handling service is an ideal way to avoid the risk of your bags not getting to where they need to be, when they need to be there.

Given how airlines are charging extra for bags these days, while offering no guarantees your bag arrives when you do, you can look to a service like LuggageForward to attend to your baggage handling needs. With LuggageForward, your bags are picked up at your home, office or hotel, tagged and transported to your destination, anywhere in the world. Along the way, they track your package, notify you when its delivered and work with the receiving side to insure the bag is ready for you. Often, when I travel, not only is my bag there before me, it is usually waiting for me in my room ready to be unpacked. On a return, Luggage Forward handles all the details, so all you need to do is sign a few forms, place them in a plastic pouch and attach the pouch to your bag and let them do the rest. A courier from FedEx, DHL or UPS picks up the bag, and a few days later it’s where it needs to be.

Want a more “technical” solution? There’s TrakDot. Toss a TrakDot inside your suitcase and their GPS-based technology tells you where your bag is right down to the latitude and longitude. That’s great when your bag misses a connection and you didn’t. You now can know if the bag is really on its way to you, or if you need to run around buying clothes, toiletries or more. It works simply by being turned on, and placed inside the suitcase. As it moves and travels, the module inside uses M2M technology to “check in” and report its location. This is the same type of technology that large containers on cargo ships use as they circle the globe going from port to port so the shippers know where their cargo is all the time.

Either way, between services geared for the busy traveler, or for the traveler who wants piece of mind, Luggage Forward and TrakDot both are making it easier to avoid the hassles of lost or delayed luggage. That means you have more time to do what you planned to do on your trip as you spend less time waiting for what’s not there.

Andy Abramson is the Founder of Comunicano Inc., a boutique marketing consultancy based in Del Mar, CA. A veteran of the marketing and public relations industry, Andy has almost 40 years of experience in all facets of marketing and corporate communications. When not working he shares a love of wine, travel, dining, and technology. To hear more from Andy, check out his blog at andyabramson.blogs.com.